Top 4 Reasons to Leverage Social Messaging Apps for Customer Care with Sarah Grace McCandless

Today’s Guest

Sarah Grace carries over a decade of experience in consumer marketing, with extensive work in digital and social media strategy, including community management and customer care support. As Director of Global Product Management, Digital Solutions for SYKES, Sarah Grace manages SM|Edge, the strategic SYKES solution providing comprehensive, cost-effective, global social media customer care. Current programs include support across multiple industries, such as telecommunications, technology, financial services, consumer retail, membership organizations, and more.

Prior to joining SYKES, Sarah Grace developed programs for a number global and national companies, including Nike, Starbucks, Nestlé, HTC, Microsoft, Animal Planet, Discovery Communications, the USO, NBC Universal, Bravo, FX, Dodge, Audi, Dark Horse Comics, and more. She has served as an instructor for Mediabistro and panelist at a number of social media thought leadership events, and is also the author of two novels.

Top 4 Reasons to Leverage Social Messaging Apps

Increasing Global Adoption: Since 2013, monthly active user growth on the Big 4 messaging apps [WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and Viber] has far outpaced that of the Big 4 social networks [Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram]. Messaging apps now have 20% more monthly active users than social networks. Gartner Research predicts by 2019, requests for customer support through consumer mobile messaging apps will exceed requests for customer support through traditional social media

One-on-One Frequent Interactions with Social Appeal: Facebook Messenger is a great place to start with social care support via messaging apps – natural extension of current Facebook company page support.

On-the-Go Convenience: Know your audience: assess customer demographic and behaviors, along with current organic conversation and mentions related to your company through social listening to determine where to “set up shop” in the social messaging app space.

Personalization: Explore communication options that ladder back to your brand voice and tone: social messaging apps offer a number of ways to engage and interact beyond text (emojis, GIFs, images, even live video). Consider what makes the most sense for your brand, and also how you can best achieve providing resolution (example: replying with an image of a diagram showing how to fix a device)

About the author, Frankie Saucier

Frankie Saucier created the Socially Supportive podcast because believes that in order to advance digital and social customer care, leaders must come together in a community where colleagues can collaborate on the latest strategies and discuss the best technology. The Socially Supportive podcast creates a space for that community to thrive. She is also the Founder and CEO of Socially Supportive, a digital consultancy that helps brands communicate effectively with customers online. Frankie is a member of several consortiums, including the Social Care Leaders Group, an international group of leaders in the digital and social care space. She has over 20 years' experience in customer experience, including 7 years creating and running the digital customer support team at the 3rd largest cable company in the U.S. She also holds a bachelors in Mass Communications.